DBS offers banking services on the Blockchain

Singapore's DBS bank recently lifted the veil on its latest innovative initiative. It presents a range of Blockchain-based banking services to its institutional clients. Named DBS Token Services, this model promises to optimize processes and meet regulatory standards.

FACTS

• DBS presents its DBS Token Services as a way to integrate blockchain and smart contract capabilities into the bank's main transactional banking services for its institutional clients.
• Singapore's bank is currently applying its new model to a few services in particular:
  • Cash management through tokens;
  • Conditional payments;
  • Instant payments of intra-group multicurrency transactions 24 hours a day on a private blockchain;
  • Rewards programming.
• DBS's new service is aimed particularly at its corporate clients and public sector entities. DBS's idea is to rely on the Blockchain to enable them:
  • To optimize the management of their liquidity;
  • Streamline operational workflows;
  • Strengthen their resilience;
  • Unlock new opportunities for end customer engagement.
• DBS is planning to deploy its new service as part of a pilot project with Ant International, which uses the solution to manage its intra-group transfers.

CHALLENGES

• Associate technology and security: The use of the Blockchain by DBS is presented here as a key to secure transactions and strict compliance with compliance standards. The initiative allows DBS to reduce costs, increase transparency and secure transactions thanks to the decentralized and cryptographic properties of the Blockchain.
• Making long-standing efforts: DBS points out that the presentation of DBS Token Services represents for the bank the realization of several years of experiments with different partners on the digital currency sector.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• While Blockchain and digital currencies were initially presented as disruptive factors for established banking services, DBS again demonstrates how traditional financial institutions have actually been able to take advantage of this technology to renew some of their services.
• Rather than the disruption, the adoption of the Blockchain and smart contracts by traditional actors was indeed a source of opportunity.
• DBS is not the first banking player to adopt these technologies. Rather, his initiative illustrates a fundamental trend. Previously, JPMorgan Chase had relied on its Quorum Private Blockchain platform to create its JPM Coin cryptocurrency. HSBC, for its part, has been multiplying pilots and experiments around the Blockchain for several years, and launched for example the tokenization of the physical gold ingot in November 2023.